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That’s Some Key

How Do You Get a Key to Gramercy Park?

TWO-ACRE ZONE The neighborhood isn’t gated, but Gramercy Park is.Credit
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

THERE are 383 aspirational keys in circulation in the Big City, each of them numbered and coded, all of them equipped to unlock any of four wrought-iron gates offering privileged access to undisturbed siestas or tranquil ambulation inside the tree-lined boundaries of Gramercy Park. At age 181, the only truly private park in Manhattan is lovelier and more ornamental than ever; yes, the colorful Calder sculpture swaying blithely in the breeze inside the fence is “Janey Waney,” on indefinite loan from the Calder Foundation.

Alexander Rower, a grandson of Mr. Calder, lives on Gramercy Park, as does Samuel G. White, whose great-grandfather was Stanford White, and who has taken on an advisory role in a major redesign of its landscaping. Both are key-holders who, validated by an impressive heritage, are exerting a significant influence on Gramercy Park’s 21st-century profile. Because Gramercy is fenced, not walled in, the Calder and the rest of the evolving interior scenery are visible in all seasons to passers-by and the legions of dog-walkers who daily patrol the perimeter.

Parkside residents rationalize that their communal front yard is privatized for its own protection. Besides, they, not the city it enhances, have footed its bills for nearly two centuries. Any of the 39 buildings on the park that fails to pay the yearly assessment fee of $7,500 per lot, which grants it two keys — fees and keys multiply accordingly for buildings on multiple lots — will have its key privileges rescinded. The penalty is so painful that it has never had to be applied.

For connection-challenged mortals, though, the park is increasingly problematic to appreciate from within, particularly now that Arthur W. and William Lie Zeckendorf, and Robert A. M. Stern, the architect of their 15 Central Park West project, are recalibrating property values in a stratospheric direction by bringing the neighborhood its first-ever $42 million duplex penthouse, at 18 Gramercy Park South, formerly a Salvation Army residence for single women.

The unique housewarming gift the Zeckendorfs decided to bestow on the buyer-who-has-everything types purchasing there is none other than a small metallic item they might not already own: a personal key to the park.

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Only parkside residents, club members and hotel guests have access.Credit
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

And the reason the Zeckendorfs selected a dilapidated 17-story brick building (the tallest on the park, and a designated city landmark) for their encore to 15 Central Park West?

“It was because of the park,” said Will Zeckendorf, who with his brother paid $60 million for the Parkside Evangeline Residence, built in 1927. “We wanted to find a special address. Giving a park key to each buyer seemed like a nice closing gift.”

The good-will gift is worth far more than its $350 cost. “Being able to say that the apartments come with a free key to the park is certainly an enticement,” Arthur Zeckendorf added.

Samuel B. Ruggles, the urban visionary who in 1831 deeded two acres of his property to be used as an ornamental park surrounded and maintained by a residential neighborhood of discreetly proportioned mansions, would definitely not be unhappy with this development. It was always his intention that Gramercy Park’s exclusivity would help protect it from the ravages of time, progress and interlopers.

The park has been fenced since the mid-1830s, and locked since 1844, the same year its trustees held their first formal meeting at the home of James W. Gerard at No. 17 Gramercy. Unlike several heirloom mansions still owned by the original families, his residence was demolished in 1938.

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“Janey Waney,” a Calder sculpture, is a relatively recent addition.Credit
Librado Romero/The New York Times

The neighborhood was recognized as a historic district in 1966; also in 1966, properties on the east, west and south sides of the park were designated as landmarks. Lexington Avenue, named by Mr. Ruggles, terminates at Gramercy Park North (East 21st Street); Irving Place, which he also named, begins below Gramercy Park South (East 20th Street).

So unless you are among the fortunate few to rent or own property directly on Gramercy Park; are a member in very good standing of the National Arts Club, the Players club, the Brotherhood Synagogue, or Calvary-St. George’s Church; or can splurge on a stay at the aggressively hip Gramercy Park Hotel, these coveted keys and the verdant two-acre jewel box they unlock are off limits to you, period. No exceptions are made. (Key-holders can be accompanied by as many as five guests.)

The locks and keys are changed every year, and the four gates are, for further safekeeping, self-locking: the key is required for exiting as well as entering.

“In a way it’s kind of a priceless amenity,” said Maurice Mann, the landlord who restored 36 Gramercy Park East, “because everyone is so enamored with the park, and owning a key still holds a certain amount of bragging rights and prestige. Not everybody can have one, so it’s like, if there’s something I can’t have, I want it.”

Of the 383 keys manufactured for park users in 2012, 126 are building keys managed by doormen or concierges and signed out by residents. The other 257 are so-called “personal” keys: for $350 a year, a condo or co-op owner disinclined to borrow a key from the doorman can buy his or her very own key. For the 16 buyers at 18 Gramercy Park South, the Zeckendorfs will pick up the tab for the first year.

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Gramercy Park is located just off Park Avenue South between East 20th and East 21st Streets.Credit
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

Mr. Mann confirmed a similar marketing strategy already in place at 36 Gramercy Park East, a 1908 Gothic confection where the actor John Barrymore once lived and a golden key is now the logo on the building’s Web site. After a $7 million restoration, 60 units went on the market in 2010 with the enhancement of a park key paid for by the sponsor, Mann Realty, for two years.

“These keys, frankly, are not cheap,” Mr. Mann said. “But our thinking was, if someone is willing to spend millions on an apartment, let’s give them a key to the park.”

The gift key is accompanied by a personalized key chain. “We included a brass plate with the buyer’s name on it, which cost another $125,” he said. “But people seem to love them.”

The evidently popular amenity (36 Gramercy is nearly sold out and owned now by its residents, not Mr. Mann) affords unlimited park access, except of course after dusk, when the park is technically closed. It’s a rule, and as of 2003, when the Gramercy Park Trustees drafted a formal, legal and binding list of dos and (mostly) don’ts, the rules are as golden as the keys used to be back in Mr. Ruggles’s day.

No dogs, no alcohol, no smoking, no bicycling, no hardball, no lawn furniture, no Frisbees, and definitely no feeding of any of the birds and squirrels that possess the discerning taste to have taken up residence in this rarefied haven. Birdseed and peanuts draw rats, and much like trespassers and litterers and groups of more than six persons, rats are not tolerated.

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No dogs, no alcohol, no smoking, no bicycling, no hardball, no lawn furniture, no Frisbees, and definitely no feeding of the birds and squirrels.Credit
Librado Romero/The New York Times

Wedding party photo sessions used to be, but not anymore: too many intoxicated wedding guests, often from parties catered by the hotel or the National Arts Club, overstayed their welcome. Too many begonias in the park’s four formal flower beds were trampled by revelers.

“The hotel’s whole marketing campaign was access to Gramercy Park,” complained Arlene Harrison, a park trustee who also heads the formidable Gramercy Park Block Association, which has 2,000 members and has pledged to uphold the preservation, philanthropic tradition and quality of life of the neighborhood.

Ms. Harrison, the unofficial mayor/gendarme of Gramercy, wears her park key around her wrist on a coiled rubber bracelet that resembles a traditional telephone cord. It’s the ultimate in unfashionable accessories, flexible and indestructible; anyone with the audacity to try and steal her key would probably end up taking her arm along with it.

Manufactured especially for the Gramercy Park shareholders by Medeco, the key is distinguished by an interesting intangible: It is virtually impossible to duplicate.

A blond whippet of a woman with a metabolism permanently stuck in fifth gear, Ms. Harrison has championed the practice of key control since becoming a park trustee in 2002. A crackdown commenced.

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Arlene Harrison is a park trustee and president of the Gramercy Park Block Association.Credit
Librado Romero/The New York Times

“Up until 10 years ago, keys were showing up all over town,” she said. “The doorman at 201 East 21st had keys, and so did 130 East 18th. Then there were squabbles with owners of some nearby town houses who claimed the park key had been in their families for more than a century.”

There was a period when keys were rented out, and in the 1980s they were bestowed on civic-minded neighbors as a reward.

“We even found out about a locksmith in Europe who was duplicating keys,” Ms. Harrison said. Not anymore. That’s the beauty of yearly lock changes.

One hundred and fifty years ago, the first keys to the two-acre park, an iffy parcel of swampland that gained its real estate cachet after it was filled in, landscaped and enclosed by a six-foot-high wrought-iron fence, were actually made of solid gold.

Nowadays they are made from a commonplace nickel alloy, but that is the extent of their mundanity. Were Ms. Harrison to lose her personal key and request a replacement, she would have to play by the voluminous Gramercy Park rule book she was instrumental in writing and charge herself $1,000. Lose it twice, and the replacement fee doubles.

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Dogs may stare through the bars as mournfully as they like, but not even having a key-holder for a master will get them in.Credit
Librado Romero/The New York Times

An elected trustee a decade into her lifetime term, Ms. Harrison has never lost her key. “And really,” she said, “the only time we’ve really enforced the replacement fee was with the hotel, because guests kept pilfering keys as souvenirs, even after the hotel tried to discourage it by attaching a big brass ring to them.”

Ms. Harrison, who in 1971 moved with her family into a sprawling parkfront apartment at 34 Gramercy Park East acquired for $68,000, and the park’s full-time caretaker, Amando Flores, keep a list of all key-holders and the code number on each key. Anybody who sneaks into the park is subject to interrogation and ejection.

“For the most part, the only people Amando and I don’t know are from the Gramercy Park Hotel,” said Ms. Harrison, who downsized to a two-bedroom with city views in 1985. “But our biggest loophole has been closed: the hotel doesn’t lend out keys anymore.” Guests are escorted into, and retrieved from, the park by members of the hotel staff.

Maialino, the Danny Meyer restaurant at the hotel, is a de facto city hall for Ms. Harrison and her neighbors; park business is discussed every morning over breakfast.

“Being on the park organizes your life whether you go inside it or not,” Mr. Meyer observed. “Maialino would be a citizen of whatever park it was located on, but any other park would not be strictly residential, and that’s what makes this one such an emotional issue for so many people.”

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A commemorative fountain and plaque dedicated to Samuel B. Ruggles, who in 1831 founded Gramercy Park.Credit
Librado Romero/The New York Times

And nostalgic for him: Mr. Meyer recalled that his first-ever kiss with his future wife took place next to the Gramercy Park fence.

The park is not only conducive to romance, but also resistant to commercialization. “This is a protected neighborhood,” said John Burger, a broker with Brown Harris Stevens. “You are never going to see a Duane Reade on the corner.”

The Rev. Thomas Pike, the retired rector of Calvary-St. George’s Church and a park trustee, took time to appreciate his key. “When I first came here from Yonkers in 1971,” said Mr. Pike, a former member of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, “I told myself I wasn’t going to use my key, that a locked park was elitist, so I’d walk over to Stuyvesant to eat my lunch. But there was never anyone there!

“Everyone was sitting on the benches outside Gramercy Park, or along the edge of the fence,” he continued, “and I know that doesn’t sound egalitarian, but people choose to come here just for the peace and quiet and serenity. It’s a Ralph Waldo Emerson sort of world; the fence is there to protect the plants, not keep people out.”

But the key — residences with park access are valued 10 percent higher than Gramercy-area properties without it — remains a powerful persuader. When the trustees became immersed recently in a battle over a proposed nightclub at 38 Gramercy Park North, the unthinkable prospect sparked the exploration of a precedent-setting punishment: if 38 Gramercy’s board persisted in bringing a bar to the park, a direct affront to the 1831 Ruggles indenture, perhaps the building deserved to forfeit its park keys.